REVIEW: Tekkon Kinkreet film

Tekkon Kinkreet: Black and White (film)

By Taiyo Matsumoto,

Tekkon Kinkreet: Black and White (film)

Originally opened in 2006

·         Unlike the manga, White is noted to have an orange shirt in the film as opposed to white clothing. Black, while keeping to his black attire, does not have the kanji for black on his back.

·         The film opens up with the brothers fighting another set of brothers as opposed to random gangsters.

·         It could be the American-style print of the manga, but Black’s scar is on the other eye in the film.

·         The atmospheric scenes of the film expand upon the more compact aspects of Treasure Town that the manga was limited to due to the medium of manga.

·         The reactions of the crowds are in the film towards the Cats and Chocolate’s gang and the other yakuza in Treasure Town, which is notably limited or excluded in the manga.

·         White’s innocence and slight mental challenges are more noted in the film than in the manga, which seems to center more on Black and his troubles with the city.

·         The hint of Black being one with the Minotaur is hinted at earlier in the film than in the manga.

·         Kimura’s relationship with his wife is also touched more in the film than in the manga, where she only serves to be there for him in the end and does not play too much into his development.

·         The nonsense language of the aliens sounds more Japanese than the implied Chinese-style of the assassins in the manga.

·         The Japanese theme of the town is made lesser with the graffiti being in English and the town signs also being in English. This could be due to the director of this film being not-Japanese and this film being geared towards an international release.

·         They include a Japanese shadow puppet thing in the film that wasn’t in the manga.

·         Suzuki dies earlier in the film than in the manga, where all the adult yakuza die about the same time.

·         The Snake character is notably blonde and looks foreign compared to the manga where he looks still Japanese though with bleached hair.

·         It is the death of Suzuki and not the killing of the two alien assassins that spurs the humanity in Black again in the film.

·         The foreign amusement part of Treasure Town is made more prevalent with Part 3 of the film than with the manga where it felt like there was little change in Treasure Town saves for which gangs were in power.

·         They include a hugely surreal scene where Black sees where the darkness of hate leads mankind by the semi-supernatural powers of White.

·         Suzuki survives by the end of the film, where he died by the end of the manga after killing Snake.

·         Overall, the film I felt was just as good as the manga if not slightly superior as the pacing of the manga seemed erratic at times yet the film fitted them more fluidly. Also, the mundane dialogue of the beginning of the manga was left out for more development of side characters though this story is still about the two boys.

Bibliography:

Tekkon Kinkreet. Dir. Michael Arias. Perf. Kazunari Ninomiya, Yû Aoi, Yûsuke Iseya, Kankurô Kudô, Min Tanaka. Sony Pictures Home Entertainment, 2007. DVD.

REVIEW: Lone Wolf and Cub

Lone Wolf and Cub

By Kazuo Koike and Goseki Kojima, introduction by Frank Miller

Originally published in 1970

·         It is to note that the cover for the American publications of Lone Wolf and Cub are drawn by Frank Miller, who in turn was inspired by the style of manga and who wrote an introduction to how much Lone Wolf and Cub inspired his works like The Dark Knight Returns and other Batman works that he did.

·         The specific issue I will focus on is Issue 8 of the American publication.

·         The introduction by Frank Miller doesn’t talk too much the author or even about the status of Japanese comics at the time but more on the censorship on American comics and how the media is slumping in our times yet with the exportation of comics to Japan, manga has taken a life of its own and perhaps we can learn a lot about the medium through how other nations make comics.

·         They choose in the beginning not to translate the sound effects and the names of the characters in the native Japanese writings done by Kazuo. Instead, the translators allowed the dynamic word play to continue on with the first page, translating only what was already in word bubbles and even that varies in importance. This could be seen as an influence to how Miller was to use his own style of words being influential to his works like in the Dark Knight Returns.

·         As manga is a colorless medium, the use of black and white as seen in Lone Wolf and Cub is influential to the mood of the story in addition to how the panels are laid out. Take the second page for example, where there is a panel with our protagonist in black yet the “aura” of his killing intent is in white, which would mean the author took planned drawing the inking and then whiting around the character to make an artificial fire look.

·         Unlike Tezuka, Kazuo took it onto himself to make establishing shots of the backgrounds (like in Page 11-12) to allow the setting to be in the reader’s minds when explaining other portions of the tale. Take it with the pages afterward (Page 13-14) where the assassins are shown and we take it with what we read before to mentally project the assassin’s onto the landscape even though Pages 13-14 are blank in the background.

·         To note Scott McCloud, characters seen in manga that are human or supposed to be at least Japanese have more simplified faces than any more detailed object which we are to not necessarily relate to. Take the people in Page 28, whose facial features look relatively simple in comparison to how more realistic drawings look. Now look at Page 29 with the highly detailed horse. We initially take in that the people are more relatable whereas we see the horse as its own separate object.

·         Speed lines, very prominent in manga, is seen well in this series as with the chain weapon on Page 52 or with the wind that is commonly seen like in Page 51.

·         Overall, this story was really good about a samurai and his son traveling for revenge. I highly recommend it to anyone.

Bibliography:

Koike, Kazuo, and Goseki Kojima. The Assassin's Road. Milwaukie, OR: Dark Horse Comics, 2000. Print.

Miller, Frank, Klaus Janson, Lynn Varley, John Costanza, and Bob Kane. Batman: The Dark Knight Returns. New York, NY: DC Comics, 2002. Print.

MOCA: Alt. Comics and Marvels & Monsters

Museum of Chinese in America: Alt. Comics and Marvels & Monsters

Two exhibits in the Museum of Chinese in America

An event of 2012

Alt. Comics and Marvels & Monsters

·         The Alt. Comics portion featured artists from both the East and West Coast who are Asian American who worked on comics touching on the topic of being Asian in America.

·         They have a noted connection web where the cartoonists of the West Coast are part of a group called “Art Night.” The East Coast artists are similarly with their own connections.

·         The artists featured included Larry Hama, Alex Joon Kim, Derek Kirk Kim, Jerry Ma, Christine Norrie, Thien Pham, Lark Pien, Jason Shiga, GB Tran and Luen Yang.

·         Their art featured included works they are currently on, as with the case of G.L. Yang. Yang also worked on American Born Chinese, a graphic novel I enjoy.

·         The West Coast artists notably praise each other in their descriptions.

·         The works featured are that of the original pencils and inks with the exceptions of printed copies of the artists’ publications.

·         The gallery also included sketches the artists did in childhood.

·         Some artists are in relationships or married to some others.

·         The Marvels and Monsters portion featured an analysis on how Asians were portrayed in comics: mostly in archetype yellow face.

·         The exhibit opens with exaggerated color tones of yellow and brown colors that were used on Asian characters in comics: a noted difference from the white comic counterparts who had normal skin colors to them.

·         The archetypes covered were that of Schemers (Dr. Fu Manchu), Dragon Ladies, wise Sages, submissive women and others: all of which still has some prevalence in how Asians are portrayed in American comics and even American media today.

·         The archetypes of making the Asians look evil or lesser than their white counterparts was not limited to Chinese, as Japanese and other races of people were shown to cover the spectrum of archetypes.

·         For the Dragon Ladies, they were attractive foreigners of noted height, as they were drawn as tall as white people.

·         They included pages of Mary Marvel, the Unknown Soldier, Dr. Strange, Iron Fist and other known comics to show how Asians were commonly portrayed with a white character to introduce them. Not until recently had Asians been allowed to be the starring focus of their own in American comics.

·         If one were to wait for a guided tour, there was also an included exercise where one was to draw out your actual self versus your ideal self for Asian participants.

·         Overall, I like the exhibits and the museum and not only because I myself am an Asian American person